The most common method of whitening a beverage such as coffee or tea is to add cream or milk. Coffee shops that dispense large volumes of cream or milk may use dispensing equipment that contains large fluid volumes. One example of such dispensing equipment is described in applicant's co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/830,033 published as U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0236429 A1, the entirety of which is herein incorporated by reference. Control of dispensing volume may be an available feature of the dispensing equipment, having the advantage of rendering a consistent product when a customer orders, for example, a whitened beverage with “double cream”. A coffee shop using dispensing equipment will periodically need to replace the bags of cream or milk contained therein. Bag replacement frequency may be, for example, every 3 or 4 hours. This replacement frequency increases during the busiest times of the day, which can create delays in customer service.
Cream dispensed to whiten a beverage such as coffee typically contains 10% or 18% butter fat (b.f.). It is not optimal to consumer acceptance to simply substitute 20% or 35% b.f. cream, respectively, at half of the normally dispensed volume, because although the b.f. content is increased, the whitening effect attributable to non-fat milk solids is not achieved. A beverage so whitened is not as acceptable to the customer, and can clearly be distinguished from the 10% or 18% cream to which a customer may have grown accustomed.
Beverage whitening products other than cream or milk are available, but rarely provide the same taste and organoleptic properties as cream or milk. Customers in a coffee shop who have become used to cream or milk would not find such substitutes acceptable. Condensed milk offers a highly viscous consistency, and is not easily dispensed or dispersed into a beverage. Powdered whitener formulations are not dispensable in a liquid form, and also require additional agitation to disperse properly into a beverage.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,887,505 (Reaves et al.) teaches a milk concentrate formed through ultra-high temperature pasteurization (UHT), intended for reconstitution into a milk beverage. The concentrate is formed by evaporating liquid from a fresh milk product, which requires labor-intensive processing. In general, conventional concentrated or condensed milk products are formed in this way, by a processing-intensive step involving removal of water. Prior to reconstitution, such concentrates would not be an acceptable addition to beverages such as coffee or tea.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,627,243 (Cherian et al.) describes a cream substitute containing butter, a thickening agent, and a food protein. The cream substitute is intended for cooked or baked food products normally requiring cream, such as sauces, soups or cream-filled pastries, and requires starch or gum as a thickening agent. European Patent EP 0 714 609 B1 describes whipping cream compositions with low fat content that are suitable for preparing whipped or frozen desserts. U.S. Pat. No. 6,248,389 (Biller et al.) describes a cream substitute for addition to food recipes that require cream. The substitute is provided in a non-liquid form, such as a cube, powder, or a semi-solid (extrudable) product. Such products as these are not appropriate as whiteners for beverages.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,045,589 (Petrowski et al.) provides a non-dairy fat emulsion suitable for whitening coffee. The emulsion includes a variety of non-milk solids that would impact the taste of coffee when compared with cream. U.S. Pat. No. 6,824,810 (Sargent et al.) describes a creamer composition that may be in either liquid or powdered form containing non-dairy ingredients that are microparticulated to specified dimensions so as to prevent aggregation of particles.
Others have attempted to provide concentrated coffee products to which water can be added. U.S. Pat. No. 6,447,830 and No. 6,548,101 (both to Cevallos et al.) describe a whitened coffee concentrate that includes milk solids as well as coffee solids, which can be constituted to an appropriate strength for consumption. Patent GB 1415844 describes a whitened coffee concentrate, including a coffee extract, to which water may be added to reconstitute a coffee beverage.
There is a need for a beverage whitening composition capable of achieving taste, whitening, and organoleptic properties similar to cream or milk when added to a beverage, when delivered to the beverage in a reduced volume.